NFL Ponders How to Recover an Audience It's Fumbled Away

The NFL is approaching the playoffs looking for a ratings turnaround after a year of record-low television numbers.

Outcry over players protesting by taking a knee during the national anthem isnít helping, but it's only one of several reasons fans are turning away from professional football, media analysts say.

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In week 15 of the NFL season, average television viewership fell 9 percent from the same week last season, according to Nielsen, which measures television audience sizes. Week 14 was 8.4 percent lower compared with 2016.

All told, the NFL is averaging 15 million viewers per game, compared with 16.6 million last year, Nielsen reported.

As usual, they talk about factors other than the Anthem protests -- too many games, and teams in major markets having losing records.

Those are factors, but I think they're using those other factors to diminish the most important factor -- turning the NFL into MSNBC.

Donte Stallworth, CNN contributor, talking about NFL plans to get involved in social justice activism:

"It's also, again from what Iím hearing from players directly involved in these talks, they're telling me it's also about the gender pay gap, it's also about housing discrimination, they have so many things that they are interested in and advocating for and they want the NFL to take ownership in and help be able to use the NFL's platform."